


Silence

by flamboyantgentleman



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Underage Drinking, general fluffiness, mute!dave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 06:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamboyantgentleman/pseuds/flamboyantgentleman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dave Strider was four years old, he learned his first word. He did not learn it with a sandpaper tongue and a toothless smile like the other boys his age had, but with fingers fumbling half-formed language into the unforgiving air.</p>
<p>In which Dave finds a boy who speaks all the words he ever wants to hear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence

**Author's Note:**

> my...first work on ao3?? help me i have no idea what i'm doing  
> anyway cheers to this and cheers to bromance

When Dave Strider was four years old, he learned his first word. He did not learn it with a sandpaper tongue and a toothless smile like the other boys his age had, but with fingers fumbling half-formed language into the unforgiving air. A palm pressed flat, index extended—middle fingers arced into submission against the lines of his hand. _Love._  
  
When Dave Strider was six years old, he met Jonathan Egbert. John was all goofy grins and boundless energy, a kind commodity in the playground jungle; from the moment he proffered his hand to the mute kid splayed buckle-kneed over his shadow on the too-cold concrete, they were the best of bros. That was the day that John learned his first sign—fingers interlocking like premature pinky promises, one and then the other in rapid succession. _Friend._  
  
When Dave Strider was fourteen, he had his first kiss. It was awkward, chapped lips and teeth and noses and the crackling warmth in his veins from the whiskey he’d stolen out of Bro’s room. But John had pulled away and bore that brilliant smile, the one that made him think that maybe he’d been signing the wrong word ( _premature pinky promises_ ) all of these years, and even two empty shot glasses later he couldn’t get that fluttering out of his stomach.  
  
Now Dave Strider is twenty-one, and he has learned to find sanctuary in the quiet. The cool, silvery silence that steals his breath in the blue light of early morning is a blessing, and he curls contentedly around John and feels the hummingbird beat of his heart through the sheets. There is nothing here but John’s warmth on his skin and John’s taste on his lips, halcyon and familiar, and without the drag of white-static noise around him he feels a new freedom slipping into his veins. It is in this languid reverie that he remembers his first word, finally comes to understand its hushed ultimatum; he signs it with the whorls of his fingertips pressed into John’s sleeping back, and lets it rest there while the soft grasp of sleep comes to claim him. _Love._


End file.
